Maya Brooks
Maya Brooks is a former Cerberus operative who left the organization to pursue her own pro-human agenda. Her true name is unknown; "Maya Brooks" is an admitted alias, and she has used at least three other names while working with Cerberus: "Captain Channing", "Hope Lilium", and "Rasa". __TOC__ Mass Effect: Foundation Mass Effect: Foundation 1 In 2161 CE, a young Maya Brooks worked as a forced child laborer in an asteroid-mining facility orbiting the gas giant Themis, which supplied the majority of materials for the construction of Arcturus Station, and was treated as a boy. While carrying a load of rocks in the mine, she was accosted by the mine's foreman for dropping rocks, and was saved from being beaten by the intervention of a mysterious woman. The woman interrogated the foreman for the location of a man, then killed him and took Maya with her, also assuming she was a boy. The woman had Maya pretend to be her sick child to gain entry to a clinic. While Maya was taken by a doctor for diagnostic tests, the woman slipped away into a staff room. Later, Maya tracked the woman to the residence of a man named Roth and followed her in, avoiding the building's guard. Inside, she encountered a man about to shoot and kill the woman, overhearing their conversation about Cerberus and the man commenting that Cerberus stood for something. Maya distracted the man, allowing the woman to turn the tables. As the woman questioned the man for Roth's location, Maya tried to stop her from killing him, but the woman replied that sometimes the best thing to do was to end it. The man then gave in and divulged that Roth had left the facility. The woman kills him and leaves with Maya. After verifying that Roth had indeed left the facility, the woman made her way to her ship and prepared to leave. As she unlocked the ship, it greeted her as "Miss Brooks"; Maya asked the woman if that was her name, but she ignored the question. Maya then begged to leave with the woman pleading for a ride to anywhere other than the facility, but the woman firmly refused, explaining that she worked alone and Maya would only end up captured by her enemies and forced to betray her. She reassured Maya that since she had been clever enough to follow her to the Roth residence and get past the guard, she would eventually manage to escape the facility on her own. As the woman turned to leave, Maya shot her in the back, mortally wounding her. Maya revealed that she was actually a girl, and like the woman she had learned to not trust other people, but she had hoped that she could trust the woman for once. Leaving the woman behind to die, Maya boarded the ship. Years later, Maya assumed the name "Rasa" and gained a meeting with the Illusive Man, who asked her why she chose to join Cerberus. She replied that a man she once knew had said that Cerberus stood for something, and she wanted to stand for something too. Mass Effect: Foundation 2 An older Maya, who was still going by the alias "Rasa", was reminiscing about lessons learned from her impoverished childhood while she was reviewing a dossier about Urdnot Wrex. She expected a call from the Illusive Man regarding the mission ahead but received Kai Leng instead. Leng informed her that the boss was busy and there has been a complication: her mission was to turn Fist, an agent of the Shadow Broker, over to Cerberus, and someone was hired to kill him. Rasa told Leng she already knew that someone was Urdnot Wrex, and assured him she had it covered. Posing as a maintenance worker, she made her way to Fist's residence while the distractions she set up sprung around the krogan bounty hunter. While the krogan was busy being stalled and Fist was away attending to business, Rasa infiltrated Fist's apartment with little effort, peeked into his files, and learnt that Fist was bought off by another party instead of Cerberus: Saren Arterius. Rasa thought up an alternate plan: she faked a call to C-Sec and claimed that a crazy krogan outside her apartment was threatening her. The plan was to get Fist to change his mind while Wrex faced more time-consuming obstacles, but Leng, who had been in comm contact with her the entire time, neglected to mention that Fist was already outside the door. She concealed herself and made sure Fist was alone before confronting him, and with an M-5 Phalanx in hand Rasa interrogated him for answers. Saren's offer was simply better, Fist claimed. She then gave Fist a choice: deal with Wrex, or side with Cerberus and earn her protection. Rasa later shared an elevator with Wrex, the latter having failed to apprehend Fist. She empathized with the krogan's complicated day, and together they faced the C-Sec officers she summoned to take care of Wrex upon arrival at the ground floor, with Wrex grumbling beside her. During her mission debrief with the Illusive Man, Rasa reported her progress with the data she retrieved from Fist's terminal, and the Cerberus leader praised her both by the quality of data she acquired and the means by which she got it. The Illusive Man posed the question why she let both Fist and Wrex go, and she had separate answers for it. She wanted to learn more about Fist's connection with Saren, and she can't get that if he's dead. She's expecting Wrex to take care of Fist before the human compromised Cerberus, and added that she liked the krogan: he's straightforward, honest, and uncomplicated. Mass Effect: Foundation 3 Rasa was yet again undercover at the Citadel the day after Saren's attack on Eden Prime, dyeing her hair red and wearing glasses. At the same time, Leng was on Eden Prime interrogating an Alliance soldier as to what happened. From hers and Leng's findings Rasa noted that a Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams was involved in the fighting. Leng assumed she was KIA, only for Rasa to inform him that Williams was alive and on the Citadel. Leng thought she was bullshitting him, though Rasa assures him she wasn't lying - not on the case, anyway. Rasa inquired about his plan on the captive and Leng replied he's going to make it look like the soldier died with his squad. Rasa thought it unusually decent for the assassin though Leng clarified it was just a matter of expedience. Rasa then approached Williams pretending to be an Alliance psychologist named "Captain Channing", wanting to give her a psych evaluation on the pretext that it's standard procedure. The Gunnery Chief was initially reluctant to say anything, though a combination of Rasa's coaxing and her own introspection eventually made her divulge a lot of things. At the end of the interview, Rasa informed Leng to confirm that it was the geth that attacked the colony, which Captain Anderson failed to enter in his report. Leng questioned what Saren and the geth would want with a Prothean Beacon. As Rasa had no answers, Leng tells her return with him to report to the Illusive Man. She insisted she stay a little while longer, as she heard that Commander Shepard was exposed to the beacon, but was refused. Rasa then remarked that she'll have to meet Shepard another time. Mass Effect: Foundation 4 Rasa was reviewing dossiers of Commander Shepard's crew when Kai Leng came knocking at her quarters, informing her she missed a debrief. She had lost track of the time and complained in particular how Shepard's crew seemed to be assembled from a ragtag bunch of misfits: "broken" cases like Ashley Williams and Kaidan Alenko, and even aliens when Anderson relinquished command of the SSV Normandy. She opined they should be focusing their efforts in learning about Shepard. Mass Effect: Foundation 5 On a holo-meeting with the Illusive Man approximately a month after the attack on the Citadel, Rasa voiced her concerns on having Shepard under greater scrutiny. The Cerberus leader, however, revealed that humanity's first Spectre was already dead. Rasa asked the Illusive Man how she could be of assistance on investigating the matter, though he already had other people looking into that. Instead, he handed her what he deemed to be the most important task of her life. At the conclusion of the briefing Kai Leng dropped by for a conversation with her. Rasa shared she was shocked at learning about Shepard's demise and once more remarked on Leng's cold-bloodedness when the assassin expressed indifference on the matter. Leng offhandedly mentioned he was off on a mission, and Rasa immediately assumed he was the one looking at Shepard's case. As Leng denied the assessment and exhibited a similar lack of information, Rasa took to needling the assassin over his own usefulness to the organization while trying to figure out who among the other operatives might be important enough to be sent after the dead Spectre. Mass Effect 3: Citadel Commander Shepard meets Brooks in a sushi bar on the Citadel, where she presents herself as a Staff Analyst in Systems Alliance intelligence. Brooks warns the Commander about an unknown party targeting and hacking into the Commander's personal accounts and records. Brooks doesn't have much time to explain before mercenaries attack the restaurant looking for Shepard. Brooks is captured by one of the mercenaries but Shepard manages to recover a weapon and rescue her, only for Brooks to soon after jump in front of a bullet meant for Shepard. Brooks is separated from the Commander when mercenary gunfire ruptures the glass floor, sending Shepard falling to a lower Ward level. Brooks, who recovers from her injury almost immediately, apparently through taking a heavy dose of medi-gel that leaves her jumpy, manages to make comm contact with the Commander and helps Shepard eventually escape the pursuing mercenaries. Brooks returns with Shepard to the Commander's Personal Apartment where they meet up with the most of the Normandy crew. Liara uses her resources to identify Shepard's attackers as belonging to CAT6 and discovers that they were sold weapons by a casino owner named Elijah Khan. Brooks becomes part of the team that infiltrates the casino to question the man. Despite finding Khan dead, the team manages to recover some data drives that point to a CAT6 raid on the Citadel Archives. Brooks joins the rest of Shepard's crew in a counter assault on the archives where the mysterious identity thief is revealed to be Shepard's Cerberus-created clone. Later while chasing the clone through the archives, Brooks leads Shepard into a trap and is revealed as the clone's accomplice. Brooks does not actually work for the Alliance but is in fact ex-Cerberus, the one who put together all of the dossiers for Shepard's suicide mission; she was disgusted that Cerberus would look to aliens for help and left the organization as the Illusive Man began his slow crawl to indoctrination. Brooks reveals she is the one who orchestrated the mercenary ambush in the Wards to intercept Shepard's Spectre code and the one who killed Khan. With the clone's theft of Shepard's identity complete, Brooks and the clone seal Shepard and the squad in an iridium vault and leave them to suffocate to death. Shepard's squad escapes and catches up to Brooks and the clone as the hijacked Normandy SR-2 takes off. A firefight ensues in the cargo hold, eventually ending with Shepard and the clone hanging off the edge of the open boarding ramp. While the Commander's squadmates help Shepard up, Brooks chooses to abandon the clone who falls to its death. Brooks is then arrested but secretly begins hacking her bonds. Shepard can either persuade her to go into custody peacefully, ending her escape attempt, or she will successfully hack her restraints, leading either a squadmate or Shepard to shoot her in the back. Capabilities Offensive Brooks is armed with an N7 Crusader shotgun. Defensive Brooks has fairly strong shields and can use Tactical Cloak to flee should her shields go down. Tactics *Unlike the Clone, Brooks does not have armour and is susceptible to sustained gunfire and power-usage. Be wary of her cloaking, and that she will re-join the fight at full health after a certain amount of time or when the clone activates medi gel. *If Brooks is downed, the Clone will occasionally kneel beside her to revive her, presenting an opportunity to fire on both targets. However, Brooks cannot actually be killed during the battle. Trivia *When choosing one's squad for Silver Coast Casino: Infiltration, Brooks will be listed as having the abilities of Incendiary Ammo, Fortification, Frag Grenade, Carnage, and Alliance Officer, with no weapons available and a default costume bonus of Shields +25%. She is not, however, available via the pause-menu's Squad option. *During Silver Coast Casino: Infiltration, if Shepard is an Engineer, Brooks will make note of it when she is about to enter the grate. Category:DLC Category:Citadel Category:Systems Alliance Category:Cerberus Category:Ex-Cerberus Category:Recurring Characters